In partial defence of Steve Bray

Listen, you don’t have to tell me that Steve Bray is a thick-headed irritant. His infernal music makes Parliament Square an even more depressing place than it would be otherwise. I’m all for free speech but I’m not sure this applies to people blasting music across public spaces. His ban from Whitehall should have been permanent.

In case you don’t know, Steve Bray is a pro-EU activist who comes from the eccentric tendency which holds that if it was not for Brexit, Britain would have the economic abundance and political stability of, er — France and Germany. He has spent years shouting at politicians and blasting music across Westminster while wearing a silly hat. (You can generally tell the level of contrivance in a British eccentric’s eccentricity by the silliness of their hat.)

I have actually found Bray to be a thick-headed irritant in person. I called him an arsehole after he was yelling at me outside a conference. (“Hello, arsehole,” he had the wit to grunt when we bumped into each other later on.)

So, it isn’t with warmth and affection that I feel compelled to register a qualified defence of the old crank. After he played “Ode to Joy” over the top of Keir Starmer’s resignation speech, there was tremendous bipartisan outrage. “Steve Bray has done the impossible,” said Zia Yusuf of Reform, “He’s united the country. In despising him.” Tory MP Simon Hoare called Bray “an embarrassing disgrace of an egotist”. From the left, Lewis Goodall said that Bray was a “yob”, “ruining nationally historic moments like this for us and posterity”. “Complete lack of respect as the Prime Minister gave a dignified address to the nation,” sniffed the Labour MP Jacob Collier.

Again, I don’t like Bray. I don’t think he should have the right to use a loudspeaker whenever and wherever he likes. But this talk of “dignity” at a “nationally historic moment” seems overblown. Firstly, I don’t recall this level of offence-taking when Bray was playing much sillier music while Conservative PMs were resigning. (When Bray disrupted Sunak calling an election in 2024 — effectively a resignation — Goodall did not call him a “yob” but a “prankster”.) Besides, who made British politics undignified? A sad loudmouth on the fringes of Britain’s political culture or, well — its politicians?

The sad truth is that there was nothing “dignified” about Keir Starmer’s exit and there will turn out to have been little “historic” about it. The Labour Party is stitching him up for largely systematic failures and installing a prime minister who has no plan to fix the system. Andy Burnham’s gurning selfie with his fellow Labour MPs — all grinning gormlessly as if they have anything to feel proud about — was more “undignified” than all of Bray’s tunes put together.

A puce-faced monomaniac playing “Ode to Joy” doesn’t help but he’s not the problem

Political journalists are a self-important lot and want to believe that they are reporting on grand, momentous events. Politicians are a self-important lot and want to believe that they are at the centre of grand, momentous events. Of course, I don’t disagree that there should be seriousness to the prime ministerial office. But from the shame of Johnson, to the farce of Truss, to the grim slow-motion pile-up of Starmer, it’s just pointless to imagine that any kind of aura could be conjured up around events like this. A puce-faced monomaniac playing “Ode to Joy” doesn’t help but he’s not the problem.

Bray should have been permanently quietened when he was making life unpleasant for tourists. It makes no sense to get offended now that he is making life unpleasant for an outgoing prime minister. British politics should be more serious and dignified but the real work of achieving that starts inside the buildings of Westminster and not on its streets.